Tag Archives: Sue Whiting

Cooper Jones longs for the time when life was simple. When all he needed to worry about was whether to change his undies or make do. Now, suddenly, his life has become all too complicated. Cooper is plagued with thoughts about the father he has never known – the man he suspects as being a cowardly loser; the man he suspects he is starting to take after. Then there’s Mum. She has been acting weirder than normal, as if Cooper growing a few centimetres is a criminal offence. What is going on there? When the gorgeous Abeba arrives in Wangaroo Bay, Cooper’s anguish cranks up a notch, as he realises that he’s not the only one whose life is complicated. Set against the backdrop of a fiery summer, Cooper needs to realise that when life is spinning out of control, sometimes you just need to get a grip.

A fresh story, with themes, such as self-identity, friendship and family, which teenagers will relate to

A fantastic novel from Sue Whiting, author of Freaky and The Firefighters

CV: After developing a passion for children’s literature as a primary school teacher, Sue Whiting now works full-time in the field she loves, dividing her time between working as a children’s book editor and writing stories for young people. Sue has had almost sixty children’s books published, ranging from rhyming romping verse for the very young to novels for pre-teens.

Details: It’s great fun pretending to be a firefighter – zooming through the playground in pretend fire engines, putting out imaginary fires. It is even more exciting when a real fire engine with real live firefighters on board arrive for a surprise visit!

“…This gorgeous picture book offering serves the dual functions of teaching about fire safety and the role of firefighters, and highlighting the fun of imaginative play. It would be a great classroom tool for fire safety lessons, but is equally just a fun read for home or school. The illustrations, by award winning illustrator

Donna Rawlins are in bold acrylics with plenty of red and yellow, matching the bright red endpapers.
Sue Whiting is an exciting writer, creating stories which kids want to read, and which adults enjoy sharing.
An excellent offering.” -Reviewed by Sally Murphy www.aussiereviews.com

CV: I taught full time for many years until my children Brad and Lizzie were born. I then started working part time as a Reading Recovery and Learning Support Teacher. It wasn’t until Brad and Lizzie were both at school and I had more time on my hands, that I decided to try my hand at writing professionally. It was a case of now or never. I had harboured the secret dream of writing kids books for too many years and I didn’t want to die wondering. So, I attended writing courses and workshops, completed correspondence courses and tried to learn everything I could about the craft of writing for kids. I wrote whenever I could and started sending manuscripts off to publishers, which of course were promptly returned with a “thanks but no thanks” letter. I massed quite a pile of rejection slips before my first book, Mistie’s Magic, was published in 2000. I now have more than fifty published children’s books! Now I work as an editor at Walker Books and try to fit my writing and school visits around my “real” job.